The conditions created by so many people during the World Wars is unimaginable. Each time I read a book based during this time period, I can’t wrap my head around just how could someone even think like this. But they did. They thought people to be of a lower status or higher just on the basis of their faith.
The saddest thing is, so many still do.

A Bitter Rain is a heart-breaking story from the eyes of an SS soldier, who despite not believing the Nazi ideology, couldn’t do much to change it. It’s also a story from the eyes of a woman, who despite not being religious at all, would soon be thrown into a concentration camp for just being a Jew.

Since so many years, religion has been used against humanity rather than for it. What will it take for people to wake up?

A Bitter Rain touches upon different aspects that went hand in hand during the WWII and right after. What made me find this book different from the many that I’ve read, based during Nazi Germany, is that how it doesn’t fail to emphasis on all those who were willingly ready to help innocent Jews at the cost of their own lives, as true Germans. I’m glad to have witnessed this side, the actual side, of the nation through this book. And also how our protagonist, the SS soldier, held on to true morals and values despite the dangers he had to face.

And then there were characters like Corlina, sadly the protagonist’s wife, and Karl – the weakest and the most vain any human can be.

I’m one of those who didn’t like how the book ended. But I understand the importance of it to keep the story as realistic as possible, as unfair as it was then.

It’s a beautifully written book and as the author mentions after it ends – It wasn’t just Hitler and his followers who were evil and heartless enough to do what they did, but those who just sat back and saw it all happened. It’s so true for so many things even today. It’s the goodness that needs to unify as much as and more than the evil does, in this world.
This book was definitely an emotional rollercoaster for me.

I highly recommend it to anyone who holds interest in history and historical-fiction.